39 comments:

Waitaminnit. I was just getting all comfy with the idea of being a cabbage for the next couple millenia. Now it's all hellfire this and brimstone that. Jeez, we were getting some real good dogma going, but you gotta stay CONSISTENT, man. Changing things up all the time's never going to get you your own Rolls Royce BuddhaZillaMobile with an obsequious shaved-headed driver and a Playstation in the back.

Hell (Jap. Jigoku) is a creation of the mind, filled with self-deception and egocentrism. It is within ones self that suffering and torment are created. This is compounded in the Hell of Repetition - endless cycles through birth-torment-death.

Remember cheerful Chas:1) Birth is suffering (rude awakening)2) Life is suffering (if you create hell)3) Growing old is suffering (if you cling to desire)4) Death is suffering (if your mind is not at peace)

So WHAT isn't suffering? The 'here and now' which is cultivated in Zazen.

Great radio show! Very worthwhile to listen. I'll be curious to know how weird is the CBC? Please share that when you're done with it. Sorry to hear you're cutting back on the Porno-Buddhism. By the way I'm already in Hell--right around the corner from your place!

Great interview--it's so nice when you get someone intellegent speaking with you (unlike the TV guy when you were wearing your halloween costume). But even then--your side of the interview held up nicely.I think Dogen would be pleased to be so well represented--I mean, that's what lineage is about after all, isn't it--to represent?

I wonder what hell for cabbages would look like. Maybe a field full of rabbits?

I'm already in Hell--right around the corner from your place!

Lotus Land is hell? I'm confused. Maybe noise and congestion?

This type of self-promotion conflict with any Zen principles?

One of the advantages of being part of a Buddhist group with a strong hierarchy is that you can continue to play the humble game: "I'm not really qualified to teach, but Master Roshi told me I had to and I can't go against his wishes." I've heard it a thousand times. But if you're a rebel and fight the system you've got to get out and self-promote. "Yes, the system is a worthless vestige. Come join my group and hear something better and different."

Newsflash: The Chinese Government has officially forbidden Tibetan Buddhist monks from reincarnating without a license. Just goes to show, we should be grateful that we have the freedom to reincarnate as cabbages. Some are not so lucky.

"Belief" turns out to be an emotional - feeling - characteristic and not a logical - thinking - issue. Thus Zen, which encourages not only thinking but thinking about thinking - METACOGNITION - is not a religion - feeling - in terms of brain health and psychology. Read the BOOK

In religion, there is little reason. In reason, there is little religion. The Yin and Yang of the brain.

Part of grad. school was a practicum of sitting in 'crisis groups.' Non-disclosure prevents me from sharing... really emotional people can have problems. At one point in California history, there were more people in mental institutions for religious hysteria than for alcoholism. Ronald Regan, as Gov. closed most of the mental hospitals and increased the number of republican voters at the same time.

brother mysterion - you take lots of jabs at the republicans. it's all very amusing.. ho ho ho! but did ya ever notice that the democrats are just as fucked up as the republicans? they are pretty much just opposite sides of the same penny as far as I can see. like, the same exact frigging people! but carry on.. like I said it's all very funny.

Thinking and Metacognition in Zen... Here we go with the chicken and the egg. To calm the mind, one must attend to what the mind is doing. This observation is thinking about thinking - metacognition.

Which came first? The chicken or the egg? Answer: the egg. Although the egg IS the chicken, it is the chicken in it's earliest form and in the development of the egg, one can watch the entire evolution of the chicken.

So too with fetal humans with developmental gill slits and tails... the process is called "ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny." Google it.

Back to theatrics: Past life regression hypnotherapy seems to points out genetically-encoded memory patterns (few of which are accurate - e.g. where did you hide the diamonds?) which EVERY human can articulate.

Hey Mysterion, you cannot possibly be taking that past life regression stuff seriously can you? People are very suggestable and hypnosis techniques can be used to make anyone think they are a chicken if not an egg.

Fish have eggs and they came before dinosaurs, which became birds. So yeah you are right about that one.